AJBryant wrote:Is that totally nail-sticking-up-guy a person a naikokujin or a gaikokujin? If the latter, it's funny, if the former, it's funny-sad.

Tony

I was going to ask... "what's a naikokujin?", but I googled and found this answer on Everything2:

内国人Naikokujin was a term that had its heyday during the days of the Japanese Empire, especially during the second Sino-Japanese War. A naikokujin, or "inner country person," was a national of any of Japan's overseas holdings from Korea to Indonesia, in contrast to a gaikokujin, or "outer country person," which referred to people from outside the Empire. They were not Japanese citizens, and could only become Japanese citizens through an arduous test of feats of might.

The concept of naikokujin as opposed to gaikokujin (or gaijin) is still found in Japanese society today. While Koreans and Chinese in Japan are almost never called gaijin, they are never afforded the same level of respect that a real nihonjin would receive, even if they speak Japanese perfectly and have lived in Japan since birth.

The second paragraph sounds a little...

But I figured I'd share it as it was a term I hadn't heard before and neither Rikaichan or my on-line translator of choice translated it correctly (until I typed the kanji in correctly; naikoku first, then jin separately).